Edit This Favorite

Earth’s dry zones support a surprising number of trees

Monday, October 22, 2018Posted by: Dana Walker

Earth’s dry regions have more trees than once thought — a hopeful note in the fight against

climate change.

An analysis of high-resolution satellite imagery reveals that drylands globally have 40 to 47 percent more tree cover (an extra 467 million hectares) than reported in earlier estimates. An international team of researchers used Google Earth and Collect Earth, a program developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, to estimate tree cover on more than 210,000 half-hectare plots in dry areas of Australia, Africa, the American West and elsewhere.